The Big Smoke
by Adrian Matejka
Buy on AmazonThe legendary Jack Johnson (1878-1946) was a true American creation. The child of emancipated slaves, he overcame the violent segregationism of Jim Crow, challenging white boxers and white America to become the first African-American heavyweight world champion. The Big Smoke, Adrian Matejka's third work of poetry, follows the fighter's journey from poverty to the most coveted title in sports through the multi-layered voices of Johnson and the white women he brazenly loved. Matejka's book is part historic reclamation and part interrogation of Johnson's complicated legacy, one that often misremembers the magnetic man behind the myth.
Recommended by
"Don’t think poetry: think biopic. This collection is ripped from the history books, but not limited to the facts; it’s suspenseful, even when we all know the ending; and part of the appeal is watching an artist inhabit a famous figure. The actor here is the poet Adrian Matejka, who masterfully plays the parts of the great African-American heavyweight Jack Johnson and his loving but brutalized women. The grim Jim Crow South, the flashy celebrity lifestyle, the shadowboxing with self-doubt — everything here drives toward Johnson’s legendary Fight of the Century against white champion James Jeffries. These poems are shocking and propulsive, like a prizefighter spitting blood to a soundtrack of Verdi; it’s impossible to look away."
NPR Books We Love — 2013 · apps.npr.org